OpenGL Headline News

This article in APC magazine looks at the Linux of the future using OpenGL rendering in X Windows. Desktop environments such as Gnome and KDE provide their own widgets (interface elements) to layer on top, but both environments rely on X in order to do their windowing. This means that any significant enhancements to the graphical features of either desktop must be made within the limitations of the core X Windows system. Novell has producing XGL, which provides modern 3D accelerated rendering and features to X Windows via the OpenGL API. Compiz, which Novell released at the same time as XGL, is an extension to the system to provide compositing features. At first, these features are mainly going to be used for eye-candy. Over time, however, people o will hopefully think up some uses for the technology which aren’t just for show. XGl with Compiz is similar to the AIGLX project.